


Harvard Halls

by Wolves_of_Innistrad



Series: Tumblr Teen Wolf ficlets [8]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Derek is slightly self aware, F/M, Harvard University, Jackson is actually a scared little boy, M/M, Pining, Poor Stiles, Rich Derek, Slow Build Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-15 03:15:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1289035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolves_of_Innistrad/pseuds/Wolves_of_Innistrad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rick kid!Derek Hale and scholarship student!Stiles Stilinski at Harvard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Outline

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this isn't a "real" fic. But I saw a pic of Tyler Hoechlin when he was younger in a suit and just, feels! So here's this weird, sprawling, gelatinous mess of a thing. If you all like it I might actually make it into a full fledged fic when I have time. Jus thought I'd throw this out there.
> 
> Edit 3/10/14: First chapter of actual fic starts in chapter 2.

We see so many richkid!Stiles AUs, but this just makes me think of Richkid!Derek.  Derek, middle child of the wealthy and large Hale family.  The Hale family, which can trace their lineage back hundreds of years and was part of a royal line at one point.  The Hale family which is pretty much just better than you in every way.

So Rickkid!Derek is off to college, maybe an Ivy League, Harvard let's say.  And he meets all the right people, and he does well in classes even though, let's be real, he's mostly just partying and dicking around.  He's that guy who flirts with everyone, but secretly he very rarely actually has sex because he has "trust issues" or "intimacy issues" and no one knows this.  He's living the good life, annoying older sister Laura who's a Yalie and so steamed that Derek chose Harvard, HARVARD of all places.  (Cora has her sights on Princeton just to fuck with them both.)  But then along comes Stiles.

Bright-eye, frantic, genius Stiles.  He's double majoring in criminology and Folklore Studies and Derek only sees him in his intro to myths class because it’s an elective.  And Stiles catches his eye, how couldn't he with all that nervous energy, frantic note-taking.  And he tries. This is Harvard, most people are working hard, but Stiles tries so hard.  His hand is perpetually in the air and he's just always so EAGER and it starts to grate on Derek. 

And Derek applies for a fraternity or something and everyone fawns over him and it's great, but out of the corner of his eye he sees Stiles, rushing this big fraternity where almost everyone comes from money and he thinks maybe Stiles is rich too and well hey, maybe they could get along.  Spend time bonding over their love of rowing and yachting, or summers in the Hamptons.

Then he hears it.  The snickering, the surreptitious pointing.  Stiles is not rich; in fact, he's downright lower middle class.  He finds out a lot from the gossipers, the older brothers in the fraternity.  They mention how he's only here on scholarship.  That he's a member of MENSA, but they don't really care.  His father is a small town sheriff.  And suddenly, well, Derek isn't really sure he wants to be in the frat.  When they offer him a bid and not Stiles, then he's sure he doesn't and turns them down.

And maybe Derek starts getting interested in this Stilinski kid, maybe tries to overhear snippets of conversation in class, maybe even follows him around from the class to see where he goes next.  He tells himself he's only a stalker if he follows him home.  Its fine, he just happens to be going where Stiles is going.  Yeah, right. 

So one day, after class, he knows Stiles goes to that one little café and he heads there.  He doesn't follow, just leisurely makes his way there and then, well, he's going to' make a move.  Man up Derek, he thinks in his father's voice, you can do this.  He straightens his shirt and tucks it in, makes sure his jacket is crisp and ready and he marches forward... and then everything stops.

A gorgeous girl, with hair like the last bonfire of summer and eyes like death at a fashion shoot glides inside.  Derek isn't smitten, having sworn off women after Kate burned down their summer home because he wouldn't propose.  She called it her Elle Woods’s moment, but Derek thought she was more like Aerys Targaryen.  The girl makes a beeline for Stiles and Derek freezes, waiting to see what happens.  And oh.  _Oh._ The way Stiles' face lights up like the fourth of July feels like missing a step on the stairs.

Stiles sweeps her up in a hug, kissing her cheek and swinging her around.  She pushes him off, smacking his shoulder with his purse, but Derek can see the way she's fighting back a laugh, ruby red lips turned up in delight.  Derek pulls up a chair from the nearest table and sits, watching them both chat.  For a moment he hopes - _hopes really?-_ that they're just friends, maybe even a sister?  No though.  No resemblance so they couldn't be siblings.  And well, frankly the way he looks at her would make Derek concerned if she was his sister.  It's a kind of awed reverence that makes Derek ache in his chest, to have Stiles look at him like that.

And that's when he realizes, for the first time in a long time, that he has a crush.  Even if he hadn't figured it out on his own, he'd have been slapped in the face by it when the man sitting at his table told him that he had it bad.  Blinking in confusion, he looks over to see a tall man, dark skin contrasting with his bright white shirt hidden beneath a sweater.  Vernon Boyd his name is, and he laughs at Derek, actually laughs. Derek likes him.

 The months go by and Derek pines, constantly teased by Boyd, his girlfriend Erica, and their roommate Isaac.  Derek abandoned most of his faux-friends, the ones who joined the fraternity or found ways to piss away their days and daddy's money at the same time, in favor of spending time with Boyd and his crew.  Erica urges him to just ask Stiles, to make certain, but Derek Hale is not one to make a fool of himself, oh no. Derek Hale is content to sit right here on this couch and mourn his first real crush in ages and allow in his own misery.

Soon winter break approaches and Derek sees Stiles out, carrying bags and things with him. Another boy, tanned and innocent looking follows in his wake, lugging suitcases as well. Stiles’ friends he assumes and tries to leave it at that, but he can’t. He wants to know who this is that shares so much history with Stiles he’d come and help with his luggage. Laura didn’t help Derek move in, neither did Cora. Cora did help him pack, but that was only because she was eager to take his room for the next couple years while he was away at college.

Later that day Derek heads to the café again, Stiles favorite one he remembers fondly, and orders an iced coffee to go. When he turns around, he runs straight into someone, spilling his drink all over himself. It’s Stiles. His heart starts hammering, trying to smelt his ribs together with heat and pressure and then Stiles is babbling, offering to clean him up and dabbing his chest with napkins and he’s awkward. Maybe as awkward as Derek is around people who are real, not the fake people he can play around and schmooze with, but real people.

Before he knows it though the tanned boy is yelling for Stiles from the door and with a hurried “sorry!” Stiles is loping out the door. But, but he thinks he was blushing. Stiles was blushing when he left, and Derek did that. He’d barely said anything. And maybe it was from embarrassment, or the way Derek awkwardly stammered out his replies, but Derek had a feeling it was more than that. Because he gave him that look, the same one he gave the redhead from before. Second semester was going to be very interesting indeed.


	2. The Hale of Harvard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is technically the first chapter, but I decided to just leave the original chapter with the outline up.

                It is entirely too early to be awake. The sleep drops periodically from his lashes as he blinks, eyes slowly adjusting to the early morning light. It takes a moment to recognize that he’s in his own room, barren walls and empty shelves leaving barely a trace of his last 18 years here. Then a shirt hits him in the face.

                “Get up idiot!” Cora shouts, combined shrill voice and clothing attack rousing him from his reverie.

                “I’m coming Cora,” Derek grumbles, haphazardly putting on the shirt, gagging a bit when he realizes he forgot to unbutton it first. His youngest sister flounces out of the room, humming merrily. Sure she’s happy he thinks to himself, she’s getting his room now.

                With a heavy sigh, Derek pushes himself up and out of bed, feeling the warm morning sun heating the floorboards beneath his feet. With a yawn he stretches out, muscles taut and sinewy, in near peak condition. It’s not so much that he is incredibly active, but his family has a reputation to uphold and appearance is a part of that.

                Appearance. The word haunts him at night, only occasionally, but enough to be familiar. It seems sometimes that all he is consists of appearances, no substance underneath. It’s a silly thought, one he waves away most nights like so much smoke in the air. Other nights though, it hangs in his mind, like motes floating in the breeze, and obscures his vision until all he can see is the hollow shell he is.

                Derek shakes away those thoughts; they aren’t conducive to his task at the moment, which is getting dressed and leaving. Leaving the place he’s called home for so many years. Dressed and ready, he pads downstairs, receiving a reproachful look from Laura. She’s been giving him the stinkeye ever since he chose Harvard instead of Yale. She thinks he did it to spite her, which, to be fair, he was pleased with riling her up. Overall though, he’d chosen Harvard because it felt the best to him, felt like maybe it could be a second home.

                After a teary goodbye with his mother and a firm handshake from his father, Derek sets off, alone, towards the airport. Some of his things have been shipped already, the rest shoved in suitcases and luggage bags in the backseat of the Mustang. Laura had teased him about the cherry red paintjob, but then she had a Camaro that she fawned over, so Derek hadn’t been too concerned with her ribbing. The rest of the day is a hazy mess of airport security, bland first class food and layovers. By the time Derek actually arrives at his destination, Rental car mysteriously secured despite his age, he feels more tired than after attending the last charity ball, or gala, whatever it had been his parents dragged him too. And that had been one of the worst, because at least before he’d had Kate.

                Smart mouthed, strong willed, insane Kate. He’d really thought they had something, even if his parents and everyone else warned him about dating someone older. Derek didn’t listen, just blindly followed her around like a love sick puppy. They seemed to be written in the stars, but instead it turned out to be lead. Or maybe gasoline, considering Kate had burned down their winter home when he’d told her they needed to break up. It had been a hard decision, but he was leaving for college and she was staying in town, long distance wasn’t something he was interested in. The fire had started only hours afterwards, with Kate claiming it was her “Elle Woods moment.” Derek, for his part, considered it more like Aerys Targaryen.

                Arriving a bit late, he rushed through the check-in process and headed straight to his room. His parents had offered to get him a private room, but Derek had opted to try out having a roommate. His lips turn up in a smile when he first sees him. He’s handsome, clearly wealthy and definitely Derek’s type. Until he opens his mouth.

                “Please tell me you aren’t one of those scholarship losers, right?” the boy sneers, flicking the collar of his polo up. It must be starched or held up by wires, because Derek has never seen such a pretentiously stiff piece of cloth.

                “I’m paying out of pocket…” Derek retorts, fearing this may have been a mistake.

                “Thank God! I’d have died if they stuck me with someone like craplinski.”

                “Who?”

                “Nobody, literally.”

                Derek shrugs, figuring the less he has to talk to this douchenozzle while this exhausted, the better. Later, as his roommate unsuccessfully attempts to Skype his girlfriend, he learns that the guy’s name is Jackson Whittemore. Derek’s ears perk up at the mention of Beacon Hills, finding out that Jackson lives in the same town as the smoldering remains of their winter home. Of course, that only makes Derek roll his eyes at Jackson’s ego, because Beacon Hills is nice, but not nearly ritzy enough to support the humongous head Jackson has.

 **********

                Blaring alarms jolt Derek from sleep, fumbling to turn it off, only to realize it isn’t his.

                “Shut off your alarm!” he calls, hands pressed tightly to his ears to muffle the noise. Jackson just smacks at the device until it quiets. Looking at the time, Derek figures he could go back to sleep, but decides getting this over with is better. Orientation weekend goes well enough. He makes a total of zero friends, but is told about the fraternities on campus and gets a finalized class schedule. Despite his bravado, Jackson sticks close to him, orbiting Derek, but never quite straying too far.

                Derek of course realized he would no longer be a big fish, but this realization doesn’t seem to hit Jackson until the night before classes start when the boy figures out he has nowhere to go. He and Derek end up drinking in their room, both deciding commiserating is better than nothing. Again Jackson gets disconnected a few seconds into his Skype call, and if Derek hides a snicker by burying his face in his pillow, Jackson doesn’t seem to notice.

 **********

                The first day of classes arrives and Derek sets out, ready to finish already. Most of his classes are boring and uneventful, only break from the monotony being his Intro to Myths class. Unsurprisingly it has a low enrollment, allowing students to actually participate instead of simply being pontificated at by wizened old men and women. Derek pays little attention to the discussion, assuming the class is just lively and chomping at the bit to impress their professor, until he notices a distinct voice breaking through repeatedly. Once he actually focuses, it becomes clear one student is entirely dominating the class, hand ever raised and words spilling from his lips in a furious jumble.

                It’s not that the boy is entirely ineloquent, from what Derek can tell he’s actually making good points. He’s just so… eager. It grates on Derek, makes him feel like a slacker for sitting back and letting the others guide the class. The professor likely shares his sentiment, having to cut the boy off again and again to return to his lecture. From this angle Derek can’t quite glimpse the boy beyond his arm, but his hands are something he’s sure he’d recognize anywhere. Long, slender, Like Jimi Hendrix and a spider had a child, and the result was this kid’s hands. Aside from the striking digits and overbearing need to interrupt and inquire, nothing more strikes Derek about the boy.

                The days go by, Derek integrating into campus life. He parties, leaving just enough time to study. He flirts, not as much as Jackson, but enough to seem available, fun, outgoing. He studies, but just enough to understand what’s going on in his classes. He doesn’t think about those hands. No, he certainly does not. Well, maybe in one lurid and slightly unsettling dream that forced him to have to change his sheets. That embarrassing incident only seemed to stoke his ire for his classmate though. After a couple weeks, he learns the kid’s name is Stilinski. He thought it was Stiles Stilinski, but surely no one would be cruel enough to name their child that he thinks, laughing at the absurdity of it.

                Following along with Jackson, he attends some events for the few fraternities on campus. While they don’t have quite as much influence as the Final Clubs, their membership is impressive enough that he has to at least consider it. Besides, his friend pool has dwindled to exactly zero, save Jackson, who’s more a forced acquaintance masquerading as a friend. Once the brothers hear his name, he’s fawned over. He’d be lying if he said it wasn’t a welcome change of pace. He may not like being the center of attention, but after having been without even the faintest glimmer of recognition for a few weeks, it was welcome. Jackson gets clings, nearly creating static as he hangs all over Derek, laughing at just the right time, lauding and complimenting the right brothers and smiling that winning smile that almost fools Derek. It occurs to him Jackson is incredibly fake, and it makes him feel even worse that the mask Jackson wears is so similar to his own.

                It’s at his second party that something catches Derek’s eye; huddled in the corner, red hoodie drawn up and sinched, red Solo cup in hand, stands Stilinski. If it weren’t for the slender fingers curled protectively around the cup, he wouldn’t have been able to identify him, having never seen his face. And boy, what a face. Little freckles dot the landscape of his cheeks, moles like hills, leading up to honeyed pools receding farther. Derek is a bit stricken actually, and for a moment he has to reconsider Stilinski. Then though, then he remembers how annoying the kid is and disregards his blatant good looks.

                Of course, it wouldn’t hurt to have someone in the class who clearly knows what they’re doing in his friend circle. And of course Derek has few friends, Stiles must have something in common with him if he’s trying to rush this fraternity. It’s kind of elitist, but then most things Derek is involved in have been, just comes with the territory. He’s halfway convinced himself that there is absolutely no reason not to go over and talk to Stilinski when an inebriated Jackson claps him on the shoulder, followed by a gruff looking brother.

                “What the ever living _fuck_ is douchelinski doing here?” Jackson slurs, contempt evident in his voice.

                “You know him?” Derek asks, torn between wanting to hear what Jackson has to say and getting the lush off him.

                “He’s like, the worst!”

                “Oh is he? I thought that was a title you were vying for,” Derek deadpans, receiving a huff of laughter from the brooding brother behind him.

                “I couldn’t care if he was the best, he doesn’t fit in here,” the hulking man says, Derek faintly thinks his name might be Ennis. When a gril strides over and latches onto his arm, he’s sure of it. He couldn’t forget that girl, Kali was her name. She was, in Derek’s opinion, the meanest hippy he'd ever met. A girl tried to join their dance circle by one of the quads and Kali had threatened to kick her in the face, then raised one leg high above her head to prove her point.  Also her feet looked creepy as all get out, and she didn't seem to wear anything but flimsy sandals Derek had observed.

                Rolling his eyes, Derek looked back up at Ennis. “So, why is he not a match?”

                “Because he’s a yokel,” Ennis states calmly, then receives a glare from Jackson and adds, “and isn’t even rich to boot.”

                The visions Derek had of bonding over the boring parties, fancy cars, love of yachting and summers in the Hamptons are dashed on the rocks then. Vaguely he wonders whether Ennis’ opinion is shared by the others. It doesn’t take long to find out, when he sees the snickering, the surreptitious pointing.  Stiles is not rich; in fact, he's downright lower middle class.  He finds out a lot from the gossipers, the older brothers in the fraternity.  They mention how he's only here on scholarship.  That he's a member of MENSA, but they don't really care.  His father is a small town sheriff, not a CEO or Hedge Fund Manager or anything even remotely influential.  It irks Derek that Stiles is clearly clever, much more intelligent and way more enthusiastic than many of the other prospects, but he keeps quiet about it.

                Derek leaves the party having made quite a few connections and practically dragging Jackson. He puts the boy in bed, rolling his eyes at the prospect of having to do this the entire year. As he turns to head to his own bed, Jackson arm darts out, gripping his wrist.

                “My girlfriend doesn’t love me…” he mumbles matter of factly. Derek isn’t really sure what to say, tugs his arm but finds Jackson’s hold tight even as his body goes slack. “My b-best friend… he dos’n even call me. Too busy at MT… TMI… MIT, yeah, thas’ it.”

                “I’m sure if she’s with you, she must care for you,” Derek tries, not sure if he should console his roommate or join in the bashing.

                “Nope. Status… All ‘bout status.”

                “You need some sleep,” Derek replies, pulling Jackson onto his front so he won’t choke on his own vomit before finally breaking away.

                “Wasn’ smart enough to get in… Danny and Lydia got in. Had to make a donation jus’ ta’ get in here… Dad was pissed.”

                “I’m, uh, sorry?” Derek answers, pulling off his clothes and getting in bed.

                “Thanks for bringin’ me ‘ome” Jackson murmurs, and it’s the first time his voice has sounded sincere since they met.

                “It was nothing Jackson. Just go to bed.”

                “Shoulda’ let ‘im ‘ave ‘er…” Jackson mumbles before passing out, and Derek turns over, hoping his roommate doesn’t die under his watch. People can be idiots when they’re drunk. The dream from before resurfaces soon enough, but with the added detail of Stiles' face it’s much more vivid. Derek does his laundry at 4am before going back to sleep for an hour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WIPs out the butt...
> 
> We'll probably have a couple more chapters before getting to where the outline ends and we head to uncharted territory. Thanks to everyone who encouraged me to write this. Sorry as always for slow updates, I just have a lot of fics in progress and muse drifts between them randomly, but I really like this one and have stuff planned, which usually helps me write it swiftly.
> 
> As always, thanks to my Wonderful Readers for all the comments, subs and kudos!

**Author's Note:**

> And the fic begins in chapter 2! Thanks to all those who encouraged me to actually write this! I hope the first chapter, even though it covers things already discussed in the fic outline, live sup to your expectations.


End file.
